This invention pertains to electric welding of studs onto a workpiece and, in particular, to a fixture adapted for attachment onto the front end of an electric manually-operated stud welding gun to facilitate the welding of studs onto a workpiece.
It is known to use a manually-operated stud welding gun to weld individual studs onto the outer surface of a workpiece such as a length of boiler tubing. However, the use of such conventional guns has resulted in certain problems, including irregular spacing of the studs, lack of accurate alignment of a plurality of studs that should be aligned, and studs that are not disposed perpendicular to the workpiece.
The prior art has provided various welding apparatus. The above-mentioned manual guns have at times been supplied with a castellated ferrule surrounding a stud to be welded, as an aid in obtaining perpendicular orientation. Also known is apparatus for welding fins to a tube interior, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,241,287 of Sjoholm. However, the prior art appears not to have provided an adequate device or method for manually and conveniently welding a plurality of spaced studs onto a workpiece in an accurate and consistent manner. Such deficiencies have been overcome by the present invention.